Defeat the Empire

If you told me at the start of the year the Mets were going through a youth movement on April 1st, I'd probably have snarled and said something along the lines of "Hey, if they suck, the might as well play the kids and not Gerald Williams." Heh.

Not only are the Mets playing the kids, they've reached their high water mark of the year, and are right in the thick of the NL Wild Card race. Three of the kids- Jose Reyes, age 22; David Wright, age 22; and Mike Jacobs, age 24, combined for 5 home runs and 10 RBI in an 18-4 win over Arizona.

Even though the Mets are squarely in contention for the first time this late in the year since 2001,
I'm finding myself more excited about the future than I am about now. If Reyes and Wright are this good at 22, and we'll get into just how good they actually are, how great will they be two years from now? The same goes for Mike Jacobs and Victor Diaz at age 24.

David Wright now, after a solid first half that saw him hit .281/.369/.470, has absolutely been lit on fire since the break. He's hitting .383/.448/.667 since the All-Star game, with 9 HR and 38 RBI. Wright is approaching top-fifteen in OBP, top-ten in SLG, and top-five in his first full MLB season. And he's getting better.

Jose Reyes is another kid who's made a big improvement since the break. After hitting .261/.384/.367 with 24 steals in the 1st half, Jose has exploded since, going at a .321/.355/457 clip, along with 19 stolen bases. Because of his speed, if Reyes can keep his OBP at .350 or so over the long haul, he'll be an absolute monster over the long haul.

Reyes and Wright certainly are the most prominent kids who are contributing, but there are a bunch on this roster. Look:

-Mike Jacobs, 24: Tore up AA, now 7-for-13 with 4 HR and 9 RBI in the bigs
-Victor Diaz, 24: The butcher in the field, but the kid can hit. .333/.326/.689 since his recall from Norfolk
-Aaron Heilman, 26: 3.80 ERA overall, 85/24 K/BB ratio, 0.92 second half ERA
-Heath Bell, 27: 4.24 ERA, 38/11 K/BB ratio, plus his new and devastating splitter
-Juan Padilla, 28: Former Yankee and Red, professional retread resume, yet extremely effective in 2005 in Norfolk and New York. Lefties hitting just .172 in his short New York stint
-Jae Seo, 28: Beena round the block, but stilly oung enough to grow into a middle-of-the-rotation role. He's been like Roger Clemens in the bigs, however, going 6-1, 1.30

Can't forget the kids in the minors either:

-Anderson Hernandez, 22: Advanced past AA in 3 months; .327/.384/.423 with 24 steals in AAA
-Brian Bannister, 24: Eastern League's best pitcher has graduated to Norfolk, and is an impressive 4-1, 2.97 in 7 AAA starts.
-Yusmeiro Petit, 20: After being promoted from AA and haveing a sub-3 ERA in Binghamton, Petit went 6 solid innings in his AAA debut
-Lastings Milledge, 20: .341/.395/.503 at Binghamton. Could fill the second slot in the lineup as soon as mid-2006

As for now, we're only one back of Philadelphia in the loss column. Keep fightin', kids.